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Republican Charlie Baker is incapable of LEADERSHIP! This is solely ONE issue and ignores Charlie Baker's MISMANAGEMENT that caused a BOND RATING DOWNGRADE. Why has the media given Charlie Baker a FREE RIDE?

- "Battenfeld: Statie scandals may roil Baker's re-election bid", by Joe Battenfeld, Boston Herald: "Multiple scandals in the state police have put Gov. Charlie Baker's administration in a politically perilous position, just as the governor's re-election campaign is gearing up."

THE BIG IDEA: PITTSBURGH—If Republican congressional candidate Rick Saccone wins an unexpectedly close special election here next Tuesday, it will be on Donald Trump’s coattails. On the other hand, this race wouldn’t be competitive at all if the president was not so polarizing – even in a mostly blue collar, largely rural southwestern Pennsylvania district that he carried by 20 points in 2016.
This race should be a gimme for the GOP. Democrats didn’t even bother to field a candidate in 2016 or 2014. But public and private polls show the contest in the 18th district is now a toss-up, even after Republicans have poured in more than $10 million – about five times what Democrats have spent.
Court-ordered reapportionment means that the district will ceas…

02/28/2018 07:13 AM EDT By Lauren Dezenski (ldezenski@politico.com; @LaurenDezenski) with Brent D. Griffiths (bgriffiths@politico.com; @BrentGriffiths) RAKED OVER RANKINGS - Massachusetts' drop on the US News and World Report's ranking of top states - from first in the nation to eighth - has provided a new opportunity for Democrats to hammer Gov. Charlie Baker. While Massachusetts continues to be the top state in the country for education, it's fallen to 40th for fiscal stability and 45th for infrastructure. The top overall spot is now occupied by Iowa. The criticism over the drop is fair game. Baker himself had repeatedly touted the best-in-the-country ranking from 2017 - even going so far as to mention it (among over top rankings) in his state of the commonwealth speech this year. And for the Democrats eager to find the governor's Achilles heel, it's a welcome chance to …

THE BIG IDEA: A few hours after President Trump called it “disgraceful” that his attorney general is not using Justice Department lawyers to more aggressively pursue perceived critics, he declared at the White House that cops should be able to confiscate guns from American citizens without due process. “Take the guns first, go through due process second,” he said.
These might have been defining moments for any previous president, but they weren’t even the biggest stories of the day. It was just another Wednesday in Trump’s Washington, where many have become inured to comments and actions that suggest both disregard and even disdain for the rule of law.
During a televised roundtable with lawmakers to discuss what should be done to prevent future school shootings like the one in Florida, …

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump got the headlines he wanted this morning by signaling openness to modest gun-control measures, but will policy changes really follow?
Reacting to the “evil massacre” that left 17 dead at a Florida high school last week, Trump directed the Justice Department on Tuesday to draft a proposed ban on the devices known as “bump stocks.” Then he tweeted that Democrats and Republicans “must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!” And his press secretary told reporters that raising the minimum age at which a person could buy a semiautomatic weapon from 18 to 21 is “on the table for us to discuss.”
“W…

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump campaigned like a populist but has mostly governed like a plutocrat. On trade, he’s decided to follow his populist id.
Trump has few core convictions. He has been all over the place on almost every issue. Trade is the biggest exception. The president has consistently agitated for protectionism since the 1970s, and it was a signature theme of his insurgent candidacy.
On Thursday, he followed through on his campaign rhetoric by announcing that he plans to slap tariffs of 25 percent on foreign-made steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
“You will have protection for the first time in a long while, and you’re going to regrow your industries,” Trump told steel executives at a White House meeting. “What’s been allowed to go on for decades is disgraceful.”
The president added this morning …

THE BIG IDEA:
MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa.—How could conservatives be so critical of Barack Obama’s multilateral agreement with Iran to curtail their nuclear program but so supportive of Donald Trump meeting face to face with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un?
I posed that question to 30 supporters of the president over three hours on Saturday night as they waited to see Trump speak at a rally outside the Pittsburgh airport, where he campaigned for Republican congressional candidate Rick Saccone ahead of today’s special election. The answers had nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with personality.
“To me, Obama was a butt-kissing liberal. Trump is Teddy Roosevelt. He just might go in there and kick some a**,” sa…